Thursday, May 4, 2017

Many people feel their lives are spinning aimlessly, without
going anywhere. Someone recently made a living model of that experience,
patented, and marketed it, and is now raking it in. Perhaps you have seen some
of them on the tips of people’s fingers – they are called Fidget Spinners. During
the last few weeks there has been an absolute craze for Fidget Spinners, or, as
I like to more accurately call them, Fidget Enhancement Spinners.

It’s always helpful to market a toy as something that can
help people maintain attention. The fact that there is no empirical evidence to
back it up doesn’t seem to matter. In fact, every teacher can attest that the
only thing Fidget Spinners do, is make spinning noises while students play with
them and not pay attention during class. In my classroom, I have outlawed them.
Friends have told me that Fidget Spinners have spread to the workplace, and
that adults are using them as much as children.

To be fair, Fidget Spinners are extremely beneficial – to
those who have been manufacturing them and selling them. To be honest, they are
fun to play with. But don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that they help
with concentration.

I am confident that the Spinner craze will pass, and they
will go the way of Diablos, Crazy Bones, Rubik’s Cubes, and Silly Bands. But
until then, they serve as a great reminder of what life can become when devoid
of direction or meaning.

The Jewish year is compared to a circle. Rav Shimshon Pinkus
zt’l explains that the year is a cycle of growth. It begins with our national
birth on Pesach, continues with our national entry into mitzvos (bar/bas
mitzvah) on Shavuos, and reaches its crescendo with our national union/marriage
to G-d on Succos. [The succah is analogous to the chupah, and Shemini Atzeres is
analogous to the greatest level of intimacy with Hashem, as it were.] Prior to
marriage one’s sins are forgiven, symbolized by Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.

Rav Pinkus further explains that even after a wedding, we
cannot yet be confident that the marriage will endure. It’s only when the loyalty
of husband and wife have been seriously tested, and the marriage was able to
emerge intact, or even strengthened, that we can be confident that it is a
strong and lasting union.

That is essentially what transpired on Chanukah and Purim. Our
national loyalty was severely tested under harrowing conditions. When we proved
that our sole loyalty was to Hashem, redemption occurred.

I recently heard a very moving lecture from Mrs. Tzipi Caton[1],
in which she shared her experiences with having, and overcoming cancer, as a
teenager. She related that when she was first diagnosed, there was an older
girl in her school who was already in remission from the same cancer. That girl
came with her parents to visit Mrs. Caton to give her chizuk. Mrs. Caton asked the
older girl if she had any pictures from that time period, so she could have an
idea of what she should expect. The girl’s father replied that those were six
months they were trying to forget, and they definitely did not have any
pictures from then. Mrs. Caton noted that she and her family took the opposite
approach; they took pictures of everything. She reasoned that if this was an
experience she had to undergo, she was going to embrace it, and was not going
to try to just forget about it.

It’s a very poignant point, and one we all need to remember.
In life, we should never seek to shut the door on past experiences, even
negative ones, and even severe failings on our part. We will anyway be unable
to do so, because we can’t escape our past. Like it or not, it’s part of our
reality. Rather the goal is to use it as a stepping stone for our personal
growth and to help others. Successful people use the failings in their past,
for current growth, and future inspiration.

Chanukah and Purim are celebratory holidays because we were
able to transform terrible experiences into stepping stones for national
inspiration and growth.

At present, Tisha B’av and the other fast days, remain days
of pain and tears, because we have not yet been able to sufficiently learn
their lessons, to transform them into days of inspiration and growth. When we
finally do understand their messages, they will indeed be transformed, and will
also become yomim tovim.

Rav Zev Leff notes that the Jewish year is not a circle, but
a spiral. The goal is that with each year, when we return to that point on the circle,
we are not on the same level as we were the year prior, but have reached new
levels of growth. It’s the same time-period, but we have progressed to greater
heights.

So, life is not like a fidget spinner which spins aimlessly,
or at least ought not be.

Perhaps someone can patent a “Spiral Spinner”, which spins
upwards like an upside down slinky. It can be advertised as a device that helps
promote spiritual growth.